About IPMS

InHealth Pain Management Solutions was created in 2006 to develop and deliver innovative pain services for the benefit of NHS patients. The experienced healthcare professionals behind it shared a common interest in revolutionising pain management in the NHS, adopting a community-based response that would focus on early intervention before chronic pain has time to set in. That strategy, proven and refined over the years, continues today.

We help and teach patients to manage pain through our evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy approach, delivered by a multidisciplinary team. This can mitigate costs by reducing GP visits, cutting reliance on analgesics and injections, improving outcomes, bringing the prospect of discharge within six months and lifting return-to-work rates, whilst allowing GPs to maintain control.

We have always operated a multidisciplinary team approach. Each clinical team comprises a consultant in pain medicine, GPs with special interests, specialist nurses and allied health professionals, and health trainers. A thorough understanding of the principles of CBT and our multidisciplinary team working are the cornerstones of our operational success.

IPMS administrators are organised, focused and hard-working individuals who co-ordinate our busy clinical agenda, ensuring smooth and timely communication between ourselves and patients using the service. This dedicated administration team is central to our aim of meeting the individual needs of each and every patient.

The first IPMS community-based service was commissioned by Sheffield Primary Care Trust in 2007. Soon after, a practice-based commissioning GP consortium in Nottinghamshire contracted with us. An integrated spinal service for Nottingham City PCT followed. We are now in contract with eighteen CCGs and one Acute Trust.

In line with our belief that pain management belongs near the start of the patient journey, with primary care its natural setting, we remain committed to pain services that make specialist expertise more accessible in patients’ local communities. This mission means we must challenge existing perceptions and beliefs about the role of pain clinics and offer support and education to primary care.

With effective interdisciplinary relationships between clinicians, outcomes can improve. Pain clinics should cease to be a last resort after prolonged secondary care, as chronicity may by then be entrenched in patient behavioural patterns, making pain management complex, costly and seemingly ineffective. IPMS pain clinics deliver rehabilitation services rather than just a palliative response to long-term pain.

75% recorded an improved quality of life score

(Using the EQ5D validated Scoring Tool)

A revolution under way

Ever since the first IPMS community-based service was commissioned by Sheffield Primary Care Trust in 2007, we have been working to revolutionise pain management in the NHS, trying to prevent chronic pain from taking hold and ruining lives.